Logs:Three
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| RL Date: 8 July, 2015 |
| Who: Telavi, Yesia |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Telavi helps Yesia with her first attempt at betweening. |
| Where: Above the Bowl |
| When: Day 16, Month 3, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Quinlys/Mentions |
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| At least it's a clear day, even if it is still winter, even if practically everywhere else on the planet has gotten to be spring. High Reaches has been put on temporary stand-down just for them-- no pressure!-- so the spires can be their destination. Tela's even made double-triple-quadruple sure that her firelizards are out of sight as well as out of mind. "I'm so glad you're feeling healthy again," she says to Yesia now, a hint of dimple showing above the scarf wrapped so many times about her; it's a cold cliff they stand on, but one whose view is anything but distracting... if things go as planned. Yesia was either truly, honestly sick, or she committed to her pretending like a champion. Each summons for the past several days to test the mettle of her visualizations and tempt the fate of between were met with announcements of her burgeoning illness, the effects of which are nowhere to be seen today. She asserts, though, "I was so sick. It's cold and I don't have a fireplace, and Aeaeth's ledge is always so wet, it's a wonder I didn't catch cold sooner." She's wrapping her own thick-knit scarf around her face; above it, her eyes are worried as she gazes at the star stones. "Isn't it?" Telavi sighs. "And the weather is even cooperating. Imagine if-- no, don't imagine. Imagine yourself getting up on Aeaeth's neck, very calmly and confidently, and settling in and strapping in and showing me," well, Solith, "your visualization... and, after we make sure it's right, your just," she waves a hand, "going there. Put that in your head and we'll do that and you'll be just fine." This plan, the eliminating of distractions for both rider and dragon, has potential. Yesia certainly seems to be on board; she inhales deeply, looking at the star stones, at Aeaeth, at the stones, and jitters minimally while she imagines, as she's been bidden. Aeaeth follows her gaze, but when she touches Solith with her tonal mind it is not with her (undoubtedly perfect) visualization of the star stones, but rather, « It's creepy when the skies are so empty. » That is not what Solith expected. It's a moment or two before Tela-- who had been trying very hard not to look at Yesia, not even a little, not even from the corner of her eye, not even once-- startles, and looks at Aeaeth. Solith is more bemused; « It is? » Somehow, she hadn't noticed, though it's not as though she disbelieves. « Air is there? » she offers. « And clouds also, even if we aren't to pay attention to them right now, » oops. « But nobody, » Aeaeth practically whispers. « We could be the last two dragons, and the last two riders on Pern, if you don't look down. » She'd be wide-eyed if she could, shuffling forward a couple steps to peer over the ledge. There are the people. There are some of the dragons. Good. « If we were the last, at least we're greens. » Yesia's long-suffering sigh is directed wholly at her dragon. "Ay-eth," she says, clipping the syllables. "The star stones. Sorry," is for Telavi. "We have it, I swear we do." « We can go all sorts of places where it looks like we're the last two, » says Solith, perhaps not understanding but at least attempting to help. « Lots and lots and lots. But! » That last's edged with fire, not anger but merely Telavi-ness. « First we have to do this. It's like walking through a tunnel, it's cold and then it's warm again and there you are. » The fine-boned dragon even inhales elaborately like the humans sometimes do, puffing her rib cage enormously before very slowly exhaling; she's cued Niahvth as a just-in-case but Aeaeth doesn't need to know that. "We can take... however long," Tela says, waving a hand. "Until we freeze anyway. Just get her to focus." She smiles at the other greenrider and reaches over to clasp hands if Yesia likes, right before climbing to Solith's neck once more. Teenage girls, the likes of which her rider is, do not manage often to sigh with such enormity as Aeaeth does. She backs away from the edge, and Yesia takes her deep breath, visualizes herself climbing up on Aeaeth's neck -- climbs, in reality, on Aeaeth's neck, confidently. "Okay. Okay." No pressure, except your life. "Aeaeth, here. Try..wait." It's unclear who's struggling, because Yesia stops to focus on a particularly tricky buckle in her straps, and then straightens. "Okay. Now, here. This should do it." Yesia's visualizations have been tricky, made harder by Aeaeth's desire to embellish, her short attention span, the way things shift an inch to the left in her mind when passed by another dragon, sometimes. With the star stones before them, it should be the easiest. And yet, the image Aeaeth sends is not right -- the sun is at the wrong point, for maximum glow on the stones, and she's painted in a blue watchdragon, when today's is brown. Pretty, right Solith? Estimations from Yesia's hopeful expression suggest she's not aware of these changes. So pretty! Other weyrlings Telavi might regale with stories of close calls, but not Yesia and especially not today; today is an exercise in patience, and not just for weyrlings. She has a professional air as she compares the two, and her sigh in the next moment is very, very small, smaller even than her usual breath. "Try it again. It's the usual thing," Aeaeth. "I see two important differences." Solith helps with one of those, strobing the watchdragon between blue and brown as she admits just to the other green, « We cannot just make it how we want it and go. Telavi says so. She's wanted to, but then we'd be lost. » Not an everyday lost, not even the fun 'lost,' but a desolation that she daren't draw near. More brightly, « So we need to go where it really is even if we don't like it as much. » Those words at least may be familiar, from all the preparation that they have done, over and over and over once more. Those words are familiar, yes, and Aeaeth adjusts her wings in agitation at being told again. « But that's better, » she grouses, even as Yesia slaps an annoyed palm against the neckridge in front of her. "Please, Aeaeth, I don't want to die." That's probably too blunt, what with Telavi exercising discretion, but it does make the weyrling dragon stop and lower her head in shame. « It would be so much better, if that dragon was the blue one. Etuceth is very handsome, I would like him to see me between for the first time. » But being lost sobers her, as does Yesia's frustration and her words, and the green is silent while she confers with her rider behind shimmering rainbow veils and the sound of masses whistling the same tune, off-key. « ...sorry, » is the end of a sentence, not the beginning as the veil pulls, and Aeaeth tries again. There's the brown. There's the (boring, boring) sun. "That's right! No dying!" Solith peels her headknobs back at the repetition, the off-keyness of it all, and even Telavi winds up with her shoulders creeping upward until she realizes and forces them down, murmuring unhappily to her dragon. Until! Sun! Brown! And if nothing else has changed that shouldn't, "Go go go!" Even Solith waves those sun-gilt wings of hers as though she wants to leap skyward too. Go! Yesia's looking at the stones when Aeaeth coils and launches swiftly, but her eyes screw closed before they pop out of existance. And stay there. Three. Two. One. The extra second is probably alarming, for all involved except, you guessed it: Aeaeth. The green angles her slender wings and banks back around, bugling at Solith in triumph. « We are not gone! Or dead! » A pause. « Yesia feels very sick. » On the other side, Telavi is looking awfully pale, but color rushes into her cheeks with Solith's relieved-- and very loud!-- reply. « Telavi says it's okay, it's okay to be sick! She'll get better! » Soon enough for Aeaeth's sides? Logic would say that the green should land there, on the star stones next to the indifferent brown that has witnessed her victory, but getting back to Telavi and Solith is important. By the time she backwings to a landing in their original position, Yesia's doing more unsafe things. Her straps are unclipped in the majority, and when Aeaeth's front paws touch down the greenrider is already sliding down, her stumble off Aeaeth's neck lessened as the green hunkers down hastily. Aeaeth's sides are safe; anything else nearby? Maybe not. "Telavi, no." Yesia murmurs after a moment, flopping back on her bottom with her legs splayed in front of her. "That's terrible, I don't want it. It didn't feel so bad, when that rider brought me here, but." It's all Quinlys' fault. Instead of cheering Yesia on without a second thought, the way she might have done before this weyrling business, Tela's gaping. "Careful!" She's hastening over to Yesia as though she could catch her, and then doing a little backwards dance on her toes because what if something else catches her? and then flailing her hands in the air. "Deep breath! I know, I know it's icky at first, but you made it!" Yesia's cheeks are flushed, but the rest of her is pale, pale. "Sorry," she whispers at the ground, for Tela. "Did I count too fast? I made it just to five, when we came out. Maybe I was counting too fast." "You... were in there a little extra long," Tela admits, eyes wide over her bitten lip, and impulsively goes to give the other greenrider a hug. At least, if there are no icky sounds or smells in the offing. "Like one count? I think you were counting a little extra fast. But the point is, you made it, and you'll do it again. And you'll leave your straps buckled until you're all the way down so you don't fall down the mountainside after doing all that, and when you get really good, we'll go somewhere fun." "Why?" she asks, but doesn't likely want to know. Aeaeth's worried too, and she puts her beaklike muzzle close so Yesia can feel her warm breath as comfort. Yesia relaxes when Telavi hugs her, just a little, comforted by contact that this isn't some fever dream; she did make it back out. Good news that she can't go paler, because all her errors are glaring now. She looks abashed. "I didn't want to throw up on her," is a reasonable explanation. "I'd ruin the straps." Hugs are more important than replies sometimes; Tela's distracted in her subsequent petting of Yesia's shoulders by Aeaeth's breath, ugh, glancing up into it with a crinkle of her nose before straightening a little to peer at Yesia. "Better ruin the straps over you getting ruined, do you hear me?" Telavi has a very firm nod for that, and a last little hug before she gets up from her crouch the rest of the way. "Besides, these things wash off, don't ask me how I know. All right. One more time! and then you can warp up by the fire and drink your drink even, it'll be so nice." "Really?" Yesia breathes softly, drawing her legs up so she can stand again, giving her mess a wide berth. Ick. But Tela's trustworthy, right? There's no reason she shouldn't shakily climb between Aeaeth's neckridges again, and shakily buckle in again. "Same exact place?" Hugs are more important than replies sometimes; Tela's distracted in her subsequent petting of Yesia's shoulders by Aeaeth's breath, ugh, glancing up into it with a crinkle of her nose before straightening a little to peer at Yesia. Not that hers is any better. "Better ruin the straps over you getting ruined, do you hear me?" Telavi has a very firm nod for that, and a last little hug before she gets up from her crouch the rest of the way. "Besides, these things wash off, don't ask me how I know. All right. One more time! and then you can warp up by the fire and drink your drink even, it'll be so nice." Of course she is! "Same exact place," Telavi says reassuringly. "Still give me a picture," not that the sun's changed much, but just in case. While she's at it, she gets up on Solith too, though she's not about to get anywhere near the pair mid-route. "And if you have anything left to throw up, I know just the ledge to do it over, too," and there's the dimple. Everything's going to be okay! This time. « Look, I think I have it! » comes before Yesia's quite leveled herself on Aeaeth's neckridges. This is natural for dragons, though, isn't it? Instinct? What the green sends is being edited as it comes, but it ends right: goodbye handsome blue she so wishes were here, hello muddy brown; move the sun a centimeter off in the sky to account for the time. Erase half that cloud with a bad eraser since it's faded. Seeeee? "Alright," Yesia says, giving a smile to Tela that is slightly strained. "All right!" Telavi agrees with a big bright smile that's so big, it shows just about all her molars. "All yours!" It's after the other pair disappears that she'll encourage Solith to take wing, and after they reappear that they too will between over because they are done, they are so very, very done and it's time for drinks! Aeaeth croons low at Yesia, arching around to look at her as best she can. "Yeah," the girl murmurs, her hand on the ridge this time gentle. "I'm fine, go on." Aeaeth swells with her breath, hits the sky, and poofs away almost immediately. Exactly three, she'll get -- there she is, and Yesia's eyes are squinched shut again, her posture braced to freeze forever in between, but she relaxes slightly when the warmer air hits. "Three!" she yells at Tela, her words likely muted in a way that Aeaeth's, « Three, Solith! » is not. "Hur--" is cut off, the way Solith's entire, « ...ray! » is not. Three counts later, Telavi leans steeply over her green's side, hands cupped about her mouth, "Throw up? No throw up?" in a way that has the muddy brown and his rider both staring worriedly up at the four of them. "No!" Yesia megaphones her own mouth, much to the relief of that poor watchrider, though not because she's not sick again, just because, "I don't think there's anything left." Yesia squints a little back at the ledge they've just departed, and tired of yelling, it's Aeaeth who says, « Can she lie down? With klah that has lots of cinnamon? And can you show me places, Solith? Pretty places, for next time? » « She can do all these things, » Solith agrees as she swoops lower into the Bowl, envisioning the nighthearth-- not to between to, just to go to on mere human feet-- with the sense that the girls can totally steal enough chairs for Aeaeth's rider to put her feet up. « Many, many pretty places. Though, conscientiously, « you only get to go when you have per-mis-sion. » Permission, sigh. « But that will be soon because you were very good this time, » and Solith is as ever an optimist. Reminded, she bespeaks the watchdragon and then daringly lifts her own voice to tell the rest of the Weyr that no longer are they on weyrling lockdown, they're free, free, free! The Nighthearth sounds great, in fact. Yesia directs Aeaeth down down, as plenty of dragons go up, up, and Yesia seems pretty pleased to be done for the day. « We will keep practicing. Yesia says she is not so sick at all this time. I think she was just worried. » Permission gets more discordia, and then they're on the ground, so Yesia can take her leave and go directly for all those chairs, and the the klah and soup. And pillows, too, probably. Telavi can even come. |
Comments
Alida (03:14, 12 July 2015 (MDT)) said...
I feel for Yesia/Aeaeth. Shhh... Alida won't tell Telavi (or likely anyone), but during their own class' Between training, Alida was rather perturbed about the whole process. She'd always try to over-analyze coordinates, tried to fill them in with too much detail. She scared the living crap out of herself (and Ilicaeth, to a lesser extent) when, one of the times they Betweened right after restrictions of being with a Wlingmaster were lifted, Alida lost some of her firm mental image, and they stayed Between for a 4.5 second count. Ilicaeth's good instinct and her own experience on how to deal with fear/panic helped them get out alive. But *now*...she's thorough/cautious about Betweening.
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